


it's not a disaster (it's their origin story)

by n0rthern_l1ghts



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 01:18:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3155450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/n0rthern_l1ghts/pseuds/n0rthern_l1ghts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <a href="http://anti-stand-with-ward.tumblr.com/post/107722709626/even-if-skye-ran-away-because-shes-afraid-she">Inspired by this post</a>
</p><p>After seeing the damage her new powers can do, Skye runs to the only person she still respect who might understand what she's going through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's not a disaster (it's their origin story)

The day she breaks three of Fitz's ribs is the day she decides to leave. It isn't the first time she loses control over her powers and hurts someone (Lance, Mack, and Jemma all have bumps and bruises to prove it), but they thought they had it figured out. No one had even mentioned _his_ name in her presence, not since she rattled the Playground so hard she threw Jemma down a flight of stairs. And, for a week, no one had gotten hurt. 

She woke to a commotion, and, shaky and sweaty, tried to push _the image of his face after she--_ out of her mind. She slipped out of bed and down the hallway and found Mack and Jemma with Fitz, trying to get him safely onto a stretcher and carry him to down to the med bay. She knows she should go help them, or apologize, or.... _something_ , but she can feel the floor beginning to shudder with her guilt, and she runs back to her room instead. She doesn't say goodbye. Instead, she packs up her stuff, and leaves a note for May next to her bed (May will understand more from the few words she can manage than anyone else), and slips out of the compound just as the sky begins to lighten.

So, okay, now that she's worked for the government, maybe she should think twice about using her hacking skills to siphon money out of peoples' bank accounts. But the government has abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D., she only takes from people with known ties to HYDRA, and it isn't like she ever cared about following the law over doing what's right. And right now? What's right is getting as far away from the people she loves, now that she could kill them in her sleep. She spends the next week (or maybe more, the days all blend together now) sleeping in motel rooms across the country and hopping on buses (she  _really_ misses her van), always using different names. She thinks May will understand and respect her decision, but she knows Coulson won't. 

After another nightmare-induced earthquake, she goes back to L.A.. She knows Coulson will send someone to investigate the 5.9 magnitude earthquake in Topeka, so she spends over three days weaving her way back home. For the first two days, she doesn't sleep. When she's conscious, she can (well, mostly), keep the thoughts of  _him_ , the ones that make her lose control, at bay. She's too tired though, she's losing her grip, and the thoughts are leaking back in, so she lets herself drift off.

* * *

 

Skye has never been without a purpose before, but here she is, making her way up and down the California coast, trying only to stay alive, stay hidden, and keep from hurting anybody. Her father would be able to help her. He claimed to know how, and he'd been right about too much already. She could definitely figure out a way to find him (or, at the very least, let him find her). She doesn't though. She'd rather be confused and not know what she's capable of than be...whatever he and HYDRA want her to be. She needs help from someone else.  

That's how she comes up with the idea.

* * *

She doesn't try to fly to Bogota (not after May had to knock her out to keep her from sending the bus into the water on the way back from San Juan), so it takes her a while to get there. Between her S.H.I.E.L.D. training and her time with the Rising Tide, she's more than capable of acquiring the fake documents she'll need to make it to South America (and the money she'll use to buy another van and pay her way down there). Earthquakes are reasonably common all the way down the coast, but it doesn't really matter, because Coulson will probably be able to figure out where she is as soon as she gets there anyways. Even if she does manage to crash Mike's eye camera feed before he sees her (and it's her best way of tracking him, so she can't do it before she finds him), it won't be hard for them to realize she's the one who shut it down. There's no one else with her skillset, (no one who knows about the feed and cares about Mike, at any rate).

 

* * *

At first, Mike thinks she's there to ask him to do something for S.H.I.E.L.D.. He almost seems disappointed when she tells him she's not, and she feels a flicker of worry. If he's looking for direction too, how will he be able to help her find hers? But he's still the only person she respects who knows what it's like to hurt people you care about, people you want to save, and not be able to control it. So, she pushes through the doubt and, trembling slightly with the hill they're standing on, asks him for his help.

When he tells her he can't help anyone, his pain nearly pierces her. They were supposed to be doing something meaningful, the two of them. Him proving to his son (and himself) that he was still capable of being someone worth knowing. Her being the person she built, not the person (the killer) her father wanted. But here they are, hiding from the world, two killers-

The ground splits open between them, and Mike leaps across the crack and grabs her, zooming above the field to bring her to safety.

"I knew you'd do that," she says. "I mean, I didn't actually _make_ the earthquake so you'd have to save me and remember that you're a good person who helps people, and okay, that's mostly because I didn't think of it, and also I can't _control_  the earthquakes, they just happen, which is why I'm here. Sort of, I mean. You figured out how to control that serum, and-" 

"You did that?" he asks, pointing at the crack across the field. He sounds a little incredulous, but not quite disbelieving. 

"Um, yes? And like I said, I kinda can't control it, and I  _really_ need help not killing anyone else."

He doesn't ask her who she killed, which she's grateful for. He doesn't think he can help her, she can tell, but he just nods and offers her his hand. 

* * *

Skye expected everything to suddenly change after she'd found Mike, but it didn't. They were still just wandering around aimlessly. Neither of them knew if they were closer to being who they wanted to be, or who they were afraid they were. But at least they weren't alone. 

Mike had spent months trying to be a hero, going to places where he'd been a villain (places far away from Ace), and trying to make amends. He hadn't been in hiding, exactly, but he'd been hiding from himself in countries where he didn't speak the language, so he hadn't actually had a conversation with another person in months. Being seen by Skye reinvigorated him, and she helped him focus his energy. At first, they stayed in Colombia, with Skye (after writing a translation algorithm), hacking various news feeds and finding new leads. She would find a small time drug dealer or bank robber, for Mike to track down, or find people who were being threatened, for Mike to protect. With everything she had learned since May became her S.O., she could have helped Mike in the field, but she stayed with her computers instead. Mike had stayed on his feet (and uninjured) through half a dozen surprise earthquakes, but she wouldn't risk anyone else. 

Some days the quakes would come when Mike was out on the missions, and she was always thankful for those. When he was there, he would sit near her, keeping an eye on their surroundings and pulling her out of the way of any falling debris. He would reach out for her hand, and squeeze it to help ground her. He would do everything he could to help her, and she _was_ grateful, but any time she saw him while she was losing control, all she could see was his body crumbling like stone. 

They didn't sleep in the van, of course. Between her tremors nearly tearing it apart, and how the mechanics Cybertek had installed in Mike were beginning to malfunction, it was far too dangerous. Before long, they learned to wake to each others' warning signs. Skye would jolt awake to the sound of the gun...thing attached to Mike's wrist whirring to life, or Mike would open his eyes with the beginnings of vibrations in the ground.

* * *

 

While Mike's heroing wasn't particularly ostentatious, it was in the public eye, and she knew her (former) team well enough to know they would have heard about it. Skye knew Coulson had to know she was the one who had severed their link with Mike's video feed, had to have guessed that she was with him now, but no one ever came looking for her. She could only assume that May had gotten through to him, and, while it was what she wanted, it also made her a little bit sad. Like, maybe they did blame her for all of it (for Fitz, for Jemma, for Mack, for Lance, for--), but she shook off the tremble and pushed the sadness down. 

They considered going home, wherever that was (L.A., maybe?), but even if Coulson's people weren't looking for them, the U.S. government could easily arrest either of them, and they couldn't do what they needed to do secretly. Sometimes Skye wondered how, when the day where they could look at themselves in the mirror finally came, they'd be able to get Ace. That day was a long time coming though, and there was no use worrying about it now, (anything that might work  _now_ might not work anymore when they were ready). They didn't stay in Colombia, but the farthest north they went was Nicaragua. 

* * *

Three months in, a mission didn't go as smoothly as expected. An hour after Mike was supposed to be back, Skye nearly paced a hole in the van, its tires sinking into the trembling ground. When he finally did make it back, she had leaped into his arms before she even realized what she was doing. Her breath caught, heart in her throat, as their foreheads slowly touched, and his nose began to graze hers. Lips met, and she brought her hand up to cup his face, and as her fingers met the new gash on his cheek, she wrenched herself away from him and the world erupted.

"Skye!"

"Stay away from me," she screamed, and dodged a large rock as it leapt towards her knee. "Stay away from me! I'll kill you, stay away from me!"

"No, Skye. You can control this."

"No, even if I control it, people still die. I still kill people. I killed someone I  _love_."

"That doesn't mean you'll kill me, okay? I was on a bridge when it exploded, and I survived. I have superhuman powers. I have a fancy robot leg and jetpacks. I'm not that easy to kill."

"I can't lose you." Her voice is so small he isn't sure he even heard it. 

"I could kill you too. Middle of a nightmare, same as you. But I haven't killed you yet, and you haven't killed me, and eventually you're going to have to trust that maybe we'll both make it through." Aside from the ghost of their kiss haunting their lips, they've had this exact conversation too many times to count.

"I mean it though, I can't lose you. Everyone I loved, or thought I loved, or could have loved....they're gone. Dead, will soon be dead if I spend too much time with them, turned out to be...impossible for me to love. You're all I have left, okay? You don't get to die."

"What if I become impossible to love first?" It's a joke, mostly. He says it as a joke, anyways. She knows how to do this one by now. She smirks, walks over to him, and lightly punches his arm.

"Well, sure, then you can die." He smiles, and follows her to the van so she can clean his cut. (The tires are completely buried, and the body of the van is on the ground. That's new. They are  _definitely_ going to need his superstrength to get that van anywhere, wow).  _  
_

* * *

One kiss, it turned out, was enough to open the floodgates, and all of the feelings that could only lead to pain came rushing through. Now, when Mike wakes up in the middle of the night, he'll walk around and sit by Skye, holding her until she (and the world) are still. Now, when Skye wakes up in the middle of the night, she'll go pull Mike's head into her lap, resting her knuckles against his cheekbone as he grits his teeth against the shooting pains from the Deathlok piece grafted to his arm.

Touches lead to kisses, and they find themselves sharing their lives completely. They talk about what Mike has done since taking down Garrett and saving Ace, and he tells her funny stories about Ace. They talk about Skye's time at the orphanage, and about the alien serum she was injected with. They talk about what happened when Mike was being controlled by Garrett, when he participated in actions that hurt her, and the people she loves. They talk as they fall asleep, the metal of his prosthetic leg cold against her thigh.

One day, she brings herself to ask about Ace's mother. She's dead, Mike says, died of cancer before Ace was two. She curls into Mike's chest, and listens.

* * *

Skye calling herself a killer is one of the few things they don't talk about. Not until the first night when Skye's nightmare wakes her up before the earthquake it brings wakes Mike. She slips out of Mike's arms and into some clothes, and walks to a nearby stream. That's where he finds her an hour later, and she pats the ground next to her in an invitation to sit down

"Skye, what happened?"

"Just," she swipes at her face, trying to wipe the tears out of her eyes before they can fall down her cheeks, "the people I've killed, just by being. I see their faces sometimes."

"So do I, you know. I killed a lot of people, between the rage from the serum and Garrett's blackmail. I can still see every one of their faces."

"That's different."

"Is it? How?"

"You killed people to protect the person you love the most. My  _existence_  killed people. I've killed people because I had to too, in fights and to survive. The people whose faces I see, they died because whatever it is I am, I'm tied to death and destruction. I  _bring_ death and destruction. I don't choose to kill people, so I can't choose  _not_ to kill them, and _he_ ," the ground hiccups, "he was one of the kindest, bravest people I've ever known, and he died because I  _am_ death and destruction."

"You could tell me about him, if you want?" 

Skye can tell that Mike doesn't actually want to hear about this man who a part of her will always love. There's a quality in his voice that reminds her of when she asked about Ace's mother. But Mike is offering, and it's been so long since she's even let herself  _think_ his name, so she starts to talk about Trip, and the earth hums.

(She's too lost in letting herself think about him again to hear the sigh of relief Mike lets out when she says Trip's name).

* * *

 "He was there to save me." It's been a month since she first let herself say Trip's name, but this is the first time she's talked about how he died. ( _How she killed him_ ). "Jemma told me, after. They'd rigged the city with explosives, and when Trip heard that Coulson and I were down there, he went right back in and disarmed them all. Then he came and found me, in the room with Raina. I could have stopped her, I could have shot her and taken the Obelisk. But there was some part of me that was curious, and I couldn't. Trip was there, and we'd accepted that we couldn't stop it, then rocks grew on me and covered me. I broke through, pushed them off with my...I blasted through them. And...Trip was stone, and my...I...I blasted through him too, and he crumbled."

The ground wavers, rolls under their feet.

"Skye, it wasn't your fault."

"That's what Jemma said. Then the floor shook, and she fell down three flights of stairs."

"Simmons? Is she-"

"Fine. Concussion, bruises, sprained ankle. She came to talk to me the next morning, when she got out of the med bay."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing. I knew if I saw her, she'd try to tell me it was okay, and something worse would happen. I...I haven't talked to her since."

"Well, she's right." Mike falls to the ground. He tucks his Deathlok leg under him as best he can and stays sitting on the ground. "No, listen. You may remember the first time we met." (She cracks a smile). "I had signed on to an organization I didn't know anything about, and got power I didn't know anything about. It turned my head inside out. I kidnapped you and nearly killed hundreds, maybe thousands of people, including the person I love most, but I didn't choose  _that_. What I did under Garrett, when I prioritized Ace above the world,  _those_ were my choices,  _that's_ what I have to live with,  _that_ was me failing to be the hero that Ace deserves. So I  _know_ what choices you made, because I've made them, and I've made other ones. You chose to experience what people were telling you was your destiny, maybe. You chose to live. What killed Trip? That was out of your control.

"And, it seems to me that Trip made the choice you and I have been trying to make for months. He made the heroic choice. Let his death be about him. From everything you've told me, it sure sounds like he deserves that."

For once, the ground is completely still.

* * *

 

It isn't Coulson's team that ends up finding them. A small plane uncloaks and lands near where Skye and Mike are standing, and Grant Ward comes striding out. (Because, of course it is. She's a freaking alien thing, who kills people by mistake sometimes, and occasionally splits the ground open. It is  _exactly_ her kind of luck that goddamn  _Ward_ would find them).

"I thought you said you killed him, Skye."

"Well, I was in kind of a hurry, so I didn't take the time to stop and  _check_ , but three gunshots to the chest...I mean, seems like a fair assumption to me." (There is a very small part of Skye that is actually glad he survived and found them, if only to see how affronted he looks at her dismissal of him).

"Skye," Ward pushes his way in, his voice thick and smooth, trying to do that placating thing he does. "Your father patched me up. He knew you'd need both of us, if you're ever going to learn how to use your powers as an Inhuman. If you're ever going to understand your destiny." 

(The ground shudders in revulsion).

He wants credit for her powers, he wants her thanks. She isn't surprised. Even before she knew he was HYDRA, even back when she thought she may have loved him, he had always made her feel like she owed him something. He did play a role in her becoming...whatever it she is now. (Inhuman, he'd called her. Well, she certainly isn't going to call herself that just because  _Ward_ said she should). He brought her to the city, to her father, to the Obelisk. She looked from Ward over to Mike, who had his fists and jaw clenched. John Garrett had turned Mike into his personal guinea pig slash killing machine, sticking his brain full of machinery and kidnapping his son to keep him in line. Ward had stood alongside Garrett, and followed his every order willingly. Ward wasn't the one who had made Mike a monster, but he had followed that man and watched silently. Mike's eyes met Skye's, and he gave her a terse nod. Ward wasn't the one who had made Skye a monster either, but he had done more than sit idly by for that, he had fought for it. Ward was her fight.

"So you helped give me superpowers, Ward? What's the going rate for that? My body for a week? My heart for a year? Whatever it is, you won't get it. I will  _never_  give you what you want."

"I know you think that now, but if you just come with me, come to your father, then you'll see--"

"See what, huh? You've been saying the same thing since I found out what lowlife, traitorous scum you are. All I've seen since then are  _more_ reasons why I will never, ever, ever be with you."

"Skye, please, I know I've done bad things. I don't deny that, but it's all been for you. I know that if you just  _try_ , you'll be able to understand."

He'd always hidden behind someone else to do his killing, and now that person was her. It didn't mean it was her  _fault._ She'd spend enough time carrying guilt over other people's choices, and she wasn't going to carry any more, especially not for someone who was throwing them at her feet to free himself from the blame.  _He's a murderer_. Her words from so long ago echo in her head. _Are you?_  

She isn't a murderer. For the first time in so long, she really believes that. But she's also learned that the world isn't as simple as she once thought. Ward being free puts thousands of people at risk, and he's far too desperate and clever to stay locked up. Skye raises her hand towards Ward, and  _focuses_. The ground shakes beneath his feet and opens up. The quake is concentrated; it's only the few square feet around Ward that are shaking. Mike walks over to her, and places his hand on her shoulder, lending her strength. Ward falls into the crack she's made in the earth, followed by boulders. She drops her hand, lets the quake stop, and turns to Mike.

"Did you  _see_ what I just did?"


End file.
